Justification and Original Languages

For Paul, the Christian gospel is in some sense constituted by the revelation of the righteousness of God. But what is this tantalizing ‘righteousness of God’? … Central to the Christian understanding of the economy of salvation is the conviction that God is righteous, and that he acts in accordance with that righteousness in the salvation of humanity. It is clear, however, that this conviction raises certain fundamental questions, not least that of which concept of ‘righteousness’ can be considered appropriate to a discussion of the divine dispensation toward humankind. …

Modern theological vocabularies contain a host of Hebrew, Greek and Latin words, most of which possess, in their original contexts, a richness and depth of meaning which cannot possibly be conveyed by the mere translation of the word into English. Such an enterprise involves, not merely the substitution of a modern word for the original, but the transference of the latter from its own proper conceptual framework to one in which its meaning is distorted. This problem has long been recognized.